Judge — July 14, 1923 — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

wisi people who write about gardens I —including myself—could do it without’ gushing. But it doesn’t seem possible. Mention a rose, and one writer bursts into rhapsody, say peony to another and she swoons with passion, while as for me the sight of a well-rotted manure pile causes me to chant in iambic pentameters. Mrs. Francis King is a case in point. Mrs. King knows a lot about flowers, how to grow them, how to plant them for succession, how to arrange the and borders. Her new book, “Variety in the Little C pe (Atlantic Monthly Press), is of practical suggestion for all gardeners whose idea of a garden is the common one—a collection of all possible bloom to give color the on through. It isn’t my idea of a garden in the least— but let that pass. It makes one kind, anyhow. So far, so good. But how Mrs. King docs gush! She quotes the following: “A. single beds flowering — shrub, rightly placed in front of a dark barrier of your nd sat- an altar ina quiet church,” and then she adds, with heaven- lifted eyeballs, “Noth- ing more beautiful than this has been said by way of suggestion, never has advice more beautifully given.” Gosh! And to make mat- ters worse, the oppo- site page’ shows a picture of the single flowering shrub look- ing like an altar piece. Tt turns out to be a common spi- rea stuck at one cor- isfies it lik pic been ner of insignif cant house, where it doesn’t ticularly belong. That's the trouble with = most — garden gush. It almost. in- leads to an Mrs. King and the rest of the writers (inelud- ing the compilers. of seed catalogs) dis- course. on “ravish- ing.” “adorable,” “superb” new plants and blooms, and get you all excited to try ‘em. Ninety-nine times out of a hun- GUSH IN THE GARDEN by Walter Prichard Eaton dred they aren't so at as the old standbys, and are seven times as expensive and hard to rais When a garden writer gushingly exhor you to try scores of new plants and bulbs, the chances are she’s been bitten with the collector’s bee, and her garden probably looks more like a horticultural exhibit than a subtly heightened piece of the native landscape. I once spent three years and twenty-seven dollars trying to grow an eremurus robustus, which came highly recommended from the Himalayas. At last I succeeded in’ making one blossom. It was a dreadful spectacle. about as much at home in my ackyard as a hooded cobra at tional prayer mecting. and the next me up from atisfactory to look Yankee the Congre; Of course it winter killed spring a nice buttercup ca the roots. W: ARE TAUGHT in song and_ story that the Pope he leads a jolly life. A FLOWER BEDTIME STORY At the window of my room A box of blossoms gayly bloom. And when I pour each day at three A butterfly drops in for tea. 21 At any rate His Holiness Pope Pius XI has led one, even if it was. thirty years ago. In the ’90's, long before the walls of the Vatican closed about him, he was an Alpinist of no mean ability, and wrote in a singularly simple, modest, yet vivid way. several’ accounts of his exploits, including an ascent of Monte Rosa from the Italian side and a night spent close to the summit; an ascent of the Matterhorn with a night spent under the shoulder; and a descent of Mont Blane by a new route. ‘These accounts have now been translated and published here by Houghton & Mifflin (“Climbs on Alpine Peaks”). ‘There are folks, of course, who wouldn’t consider an ascent of Monte Rosa from the It side any spent on then terhorn, Such timid plainsmen, who risk life and limb a dozen times a day to cross Broadway for a camel, who drink bootleg whisky who drive their motors at fifty miles an hour, who inhale subway r twice daily, consider any man a fool who indulges in the most strenuous, the most glorious, the most back-breaking and soul-expanding sport known to mortals— the climbing of snow mountains. Well, let ‘em think so. The mountains are much nicer places without n. One of the glories of climbing is that you don't. meet anybody except, now and then, a few rare spirits like yourself. The Pope, for in- stance. We were not raised a Rom On the contrary. But we'd like to give a prize to every member of the Ku Klux Klan who can climb Monte Rosa from Macugnaga. We'd like to see every clansman_ try it, too. There would be no further menace from that organiz tion. Those who got to the top would be reborn, and those who fell off could easily be absorbed in the glacier. .K. (Contin’d on page 32) comicbooks.com